Learning the Hard Way
by Keleficent
Summary: Jack and Maddie learn Danny's secret in the worst way possible.
1. Pain

Danny remembered how excited his parents had been to show off their newest invention, the Fenton Molecular Destabilizer. They explained that this was their most powerful weapon to date and that it could literally tear a ghost apart molecule by molecule.

All Danny could think at the time was how much trouble this thing was going to give him when Danny Phantom was inevitably targeted by his parents once more.

But even Danny had no idea what would happen next.

He had tried to fly away as fast as he could. But the destabilizer's beam was as fast as it was strong. He was hit.

Danny had experienced plenty of physical pain in his life. And his tolerance for pain has only improved since becoming a superhero.

But the second he was blasted, he was faced with the worst agony he ever felt in his life. If felt like knives dipped in lava were tearing through his insides and cutting out chunks of his body.

 _Oh god, oh god, this hurts. Please, somebody, make it stop. Make it stop._

Danny floated in the air writing and screaming like he was at the receiving end of a beatdown from some invisible force. But there was no invisibility here, no enemy Danny can fight back against. The battle was not external, but rather raging within him as his own body tore itself apart.

He was quickly sapped of his strength and no longer able to stay in the air. He came crashing down to the hard pavement, only adding to the pain he was already feeling.

He laid uselessly on the ground moaning. He forced his eyes downward. There were open wounds on his body caused by his skin literally tearing itself apart at the molecular level. From those wounds spurted out green ectoplasm. Danny had never been hurt so bad that he had anything bleeding out of him before.

 _Bleeding out of him…blood…his blood._

That's when Danny realized: he was dying. He was actually dying.

He often joked with his friends about being "half-dead." Dealing with ghosts most of his life, death was something he never really took seriously. Especially after he became half ghost. Being dead just means being a ghost, and he's halfway there anyway. And he gets to have cool powers. Death is not so bad, right?

But now as he faced the possibility that this would be the end of his human life, he found himself, for the first time, terrified of death.

He saw two figures loom over him, one very large and a slightly smaller one.

"Nice shot, Maddie!"

"Thanks, Jack. Its molecules are breaking apart even as we speak." Maddie looked at the destabilizer and then seductively back at her husband. "But we can always speed up the process."

"Oh! Oh! Can I fire it this time?" Jack asked as he jumped up and down like a child getting a present.

"Alright, just be careful. A blast from this thing would be fatal to a human."

If Danny's face wasn't already white, it would have become white after hearing that. He might already die just from one shot, he would definitely die if he got hit twice. "No…don't…please…"

As Jack pointed the destabilizer at him, the ghost boy looked up at his parents with pleading eyes. _"Mom…Dad..."_

Jack and Maddie gasped. It couldn't be…

It's been scientifically proven that mothers can distinguish their own babies' cries from other children's. Who's to say they lose that ability just because they get older? Because at that moment, both Jack and Maddie recognized their baby boy's cry to them.

The definite answer came to the Fentons in the most horrific way when a ring of light suddenly surrounded the ghost boy's torso. It separated into two separate rings and moved up and down the boy's body.

Jack and Maddie watched as the white-haired, green-eyed, ghost boy transformed into their black-haired, blue-eyed, human son.


	2. Never Forgive

Jack and Maddie Fenton loved to hunt ghosts. There were only a couple things in their lives more important to them than their love of ghost-hunting, and one of them was lying on the ground, hurt and not moving.

"D-Danny?" Maddie said in shock and horror.

"Danny?" The destabilizer fell from Jack's hands. The expensive equipment that he was so prideful of was dropped like a useless piece of trash.

"Danny!" Maddie knelt by her son's side and held his head. The green ectoplasm that had been pouring out of the ghost boy when they hit him had turned into red blood as he transformed back into their human child. "Danny? Danny, open your eyes!"

But the child didn't respond to Maddie. She put two fingers on her son's neck. "I've got a pulse. It's…it's weak, though. Jack, we have to help him."

Jack stared at his wife and son with his mouth agape. For once, Jack Fenton didn't spring into action. He was immobile.

"JACK!"

His wife's scream snapped him out of it. Jack knew he could be an idiot sometimes, but now was not the time to be slow or careless. Jack bent down and carefully took Danny into his arms and rushed him to their RV.

Maddie sat in the driver's seat while Jack took Danny inside the RV. All the beds and couches were taken out to make room for more ghost-hunting equipment, so there was no place to lay Danny down. Jack sat on the floor cradling Danny his arms.

"Son…Danny, uh, you're…you're gonna be…fine." Jack sounded less like a father comforting his gravely-injured son and more like he was telling a recently-single friend that he can find other fish in the sea. Jack wasn't an emotionally intelligent man, and his children have never been hurt like this before. He had no idea what to say to make this better.

"How's he doing, Jack?" Maddie called from the front seat as she sped back home.

"He's, uh, he's…fine…he's doing fine." Stupid, stupid, stupid! Danny was most certainly not fine. This was as far from fine as he could imagine.

Maddie knew that too. She bit her lip in worry as she forced herself to keep her eyes on the road rather than look back at her boy.

"You need to wake up, son," said Jack. "You're…you're scaring your mother."

Jack looked down heartbroken by how battered his son looked. Danny had always been a small boy. But never has he looked so small curled against Jack's large chest.

"You're gonna be okay, son," Jack said with much more conviction. Now was not the time for him to be a shrinking violet during this real family crisis. Now was the time for him to be a man. He took Danny's hand and held it tight. "You're gonna be okay."

Jazz in the living room reading when she heard her parents pull up. She thought nothing of it when her parents burst in through the door, running inside like their lives depended on it. Dramatic entrances were usual in the Fenton household.

But if the terrified looks on her parents' faces weren't a dead giveaway that something was wrong, her brother's bloody and unconscious form in her father's arms certainly was.

"Danny?" Jazz asked alarmed.

But her parents didn't have time to answer her questions. They just ran with Danny down to the lab. Jazz followed in pursuit screaming, "Mom! Dad! What's going on? What's wrong with Danny?"

Still ignoring their daughter, Jack and Maddie headed in the lab. Inside, there was one table that contained chemicals in test tubes and a few mechanical parts for their next project. Maddie shoved everything off the table, shattering glass and breaking apart the metal pieces on the floor, to make room for Jack to lay Danny down on the table.

"Maddie, get to work on a molecular-stabilizing solution," Jack ordered. "I'll take care of Danny."

"Mom! Dad! Talk to me! What's wrong with Danny?" Jazz asked more desperately.

But her parents still wouldn't answer her, too focused on trying to save their son. While Maddie was busy mixing together some chemicals, Jack grabbed some medicine and bandages from their first-aid station.

Jazz couldn't take it anymore. "One of you answer me now!"

Jack turned to her and bellowed, "JASMINE, FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE WOULD YOU JUST SHUTUP!"

Jazz put her hands over her mouth in shock. Her father was a boisterous man, but she had never heard him yell like that before. But it wasn't anger she felt coming from her father, it was fear.

Jazz remained quiet as she watched her parents work. As her father patched up Danny, her mother finished the solution she was working on, put the solution inside a syringe, and injected it into Danny's arm. Both her parents slumped over the table where Danny was laying. Their hands over their faces in both exhaustion and distress.

Jazz figured that if they finally took a moment to stop, it was now safe to ask them questions without fear of slowing down their efforts to save Danny. "Mom, Dad, what's wrong with Danny?"

Maddie looked at her daughter with guilt-filled eyes and said in a small voice, "We didn't know…"

"Didn't know what?" Jazz asked.

"We didn't know," Jack continued with a pained expression on his face. "That he was the ghost boy."

Jazz's eyes widened with horror as the meaning of their words sunk in. _"You did this."_

Jack's lip trembled. "Jazz, we..."

"YOU DID THIS! YOU HURT MY BROTHER!"

"Honey, we swear we didn't mean to," Maddie pleaded.

"Is he gonna die?" Jazz asked forcefully. Jack and Maddie avoided eye contact with her. "Mom, Dad… _is he gonna die_?"

Maddie put her hand over her mouth unable to hold back her tears any longer. Both she and Jack knew Danny's realistic chances of surviving this. But they didn't know how they can ever explain it to Jazz.

Jack gave her with a sad, hopeless look and simply responded, "We don't know."

Jazz lost it. She came forward and savagely pounded her fists against her father's chest. "YOU MONSTERS! HOW COULD YOU? HOW COULD YOU? HE'S YOUR SON! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!"

Jack made no attempt to stop his daughter's assault on him. As far as he was concerned, he deserved it. Jazz quickly tired out as her screams turned into sobs. She wept against her father's chest. Jack wrapped his arms around her.

Jazz rejected his comfort and viciously pushed her father away. "If Danny dies, I'll never forgive you."

If Danny dies, Jack and Maddie will never forgive themselves either.


End file.
